Now apple is treating every one as adults. The company revolutionized the smartphone with iOS, no doubt. But as iOS gets older, its users are, too, and fewer and fewer of them are first-time smartphone owners. It made sense to hold everybody’s hands when this whole idea of a computer in your pocket was new. But just as Apple will probably move from skeuomorphic design to a more abstract flat design in iOS 7, it should also trust its users a bit more and give them more control over how they want to use the operating system.
Sure, Apple will never allow something like Facebook Home on its but isn’t it time for Apple to allow users to switch at least some defaults away from Apple’s own apps and to allow third-party services to come in and take over?
The prime example here is obviously Safari. Google’s Chrome, Opera and others make pretty competitive mobile browsers .With its proxy services, for example, both Google and Opera can save users bandwidth costs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple soon also offered this feature, but why not let the user choose a default browser. Already Google redirects iOS users to chrome by its own apps like Gmail for iOS when it’s needed. But many of browsers won’t do this and there is also no point in switching to browsers.
The same thing get implies for Apple Maps also and more over this apps will get opened by Yelp at any time. It’s a bit easier to switch to long-term, because you’ll probably want to use it as a standalone app, too, but it’s still an unnecessary hassle.
Outside of apps, it would also be nice if Apple finally allowed third-party keyboards. Let’s face it – the standard iOS keyboard is getting a bit old. Sure, sooner or later, Apple will likely copy Swype (just like Google did) and offer a swipe-driven keyboard, too, but there is something to be said for choice